Change In Personnel Is Business As Usual

December 9, 1985|By Richard Defendorf of the Sentinel Staff

Whole lotta movin' and shakin' goin' on: Firings, resignations and promotions happen frequently in the radio business. The past 10 days in this market, however, have seen an exceptional amount of turnover involving higher- up, management types at three of our major stations.

Specifically:

David Bernstein, former operations manager at adult-contemporary WDBO-AM (580), was promoted to program director at WTIC-AM in Hartford, Conn. Bernstein has been bracing against the New England cold on his way to work since Nov. 29.

Bernstein's replacement, Bill Patti, is former program director at oldies station WREM-AM (1190) (now tourist-information station WWLD). Patti vowed not to change what he considers good programming at WDBO, though there is talk about adding more oldies to the station's weekend song rotation.

Personnel change No. 2 involves Alan Rock, who resigned Nov. 29 as general manager at contemporary-hits WHLY-FM (106.7). Neither Rock nor WHLY owner Peter Starr would elaborate much, except to say that Rock had served at WHLY in various capacities for nine years and was fearless leader there for the past two.

''I probably will stay in the area. I've got a couple of ideas that I'm exploring,'' Rock said. And then joked, ''I might start my own radio station.''

At least I think he was joking.

Rock's replacement is James Tillery, currently general manager at country KXXY-FM in Oklahoma City, Okla. Tillery will assume full-time duties at WHLY on Jan. 1. Starr emphasized that the management change heralds no format changes.

Personnel change No. 3 involves the departure from WHOO-FM (96.5) of programmer/ disc jockey Bucks Braun, who submitted his ''long-term'' resignation on Nov. 1 and worked his last day Tuesday. Deejay Bill Cody now is manning Braun's old 5-to-9 a.m. weekday shift, while program director Mike Kinosian, already in charge of programming at WMMA-AM (990), has taken over Braun's programming duties at WHOO-FM.

Braun, who had worked at WHOO since 1979, said he quit because of the grind. The 15-hour days required to complete both his programming and on-air duties just didn't cut it. A job in the music industry or another radio announcing job just might, though Braun hinted that listeners in this market may have heard the last of him.

''I talk on the radio,'' he said. ''That's what I set out to do in this business and it's the one thing I can still do well. I'm taking a look at a couple of things, but more than likely outside of this area.''

You better not pout, but it's okay to scream: In a Dec. 5 memo to staffers at WJYO-FM (107.7), general manager Harvey Tate designated one of the station's production rooms as the Official Tension Relief Room. The memo invited employees to use the room to ''scream out all your frustrations to your heart's content,'' adding, however, that all frustrations must be work- related.

''With all the personnel changes,'' said Tate, in reference to the maneuverings mentioned above, ''we thought we'd better have a lighter feeling around here.''

Christmas elsewhere. A series of reports about yuletide celebrations on other parts of the planet can be heard at 8:20 a.m. today through Friday on WKIS-AM (740). Titled Christmas Around the World, the four-minute spots will be filed by various network news correspondents stationed in London, Paris, Moscow and Tokyo.